history and reference Did Tourings Originally Have Bulbous Front Turn Lights?

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

Did Tourings originally have bulbous front turn lights? I found some old photos of my car my Dad took and it had US style turn signals. These photos are from circa 1977-78. Aftermarket or part of the Sportpaket?

 

 

 

 

[bnam]

There was a thread on this a few days ago.  Apparently, these did come with the bigger lenses.

[02Les]

The Touring was offered with a "sport paket".

This included the "often called" tii alloy wheels, Recaro seats, sport steering wheel AND the bubble blinkers.

These blinkers are different than the US ones (they have a different part#) and are still available and cheaper (for some reason) than the US bubbles and the flat blinkers.

 

More importantly, they are much more visable than the flat blinkers.

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

There was a thread on this a few days ago.  Apparently, these did come with the bigger lenses.

sorry, should have searched.  Thanks for the info

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

Les, do you by chance have the part # for the touring turn lights? Real OEM shows a photo of what appears to be a euro lens.

# 63138454102 / 03

http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?model=2631&mospid=47135&btnr=63_0491&hg=63&fg=10

 

Thanks!

Edited July 16, 2013 by Ben in Denver

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

Found it:

63131354557 / 558

[02Les]

Found it:

63131354557 / 558

 

Ben,

That's correct.

Call Steve (Bluntech) - he just got a set for my Touring. Good price too.

 

I wanted to get rid of the flat blinkers as they are hardly seen in daylight.

On a few trips with the Touring & Beater, if I'm ahead in the Beater and looking back at Yvonne in the Touring I can't tell if the flat blinkers are working or not, and the blinkers are not that old. I'm sure the bubble ones have to be more visable (they are for sure on the Beater).

[mikesmith]

Les, consider getting some of the *really* bright amber LEDs for your front blinkers, and remove the reflector behind the bulb.

 

The 27W Osram unit here http://autolumination.com/1156_1157.htm is absurdly bright, for example, and uses the same power as the stock P21W bulb.

 

Also check your fuses and ground for the blinker (apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs...), you can lose a lot of light with a bad connection there.

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

Mike, do you use the above led bulbs in your car? Are there any issues with blinker malfunction?

[mikesmith]

Ben,

I wouldn't expect blinker malfunction with those LEDs, as their current draw will be very close to the same as normal bulbs. The issues with LED turn signals are that most draw much less current - I have been happy with LEDs around the 7-10W range in other applications, and you typically need a flasher fix there.

Tridon make an EP26 LED-aware flasher that suits our cars; you can get them for $10 or so on eBay, or you can get a similar one from Autolumination for $15.

 

EDIT: I should note that the EP26 is electrically compatible, but the pins are arranged on the bottom of the flasher in the standard relay pinout, whilst the plug '02 has the pins in an L shape:

 

 

To use the EP26 flasher, you will need to remove the pins from the stock plug housing and either insulate them and place them individually over the terminals on the new flasher, or insert them into a normal relay pinout base.

Edited July 18, 2013 by mikesmith

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

Does this flasher unit wire directly in line? I need schooled on LED systems.

[mikesmith]

Ben, the EP26 flasher is a direct drop-in for the stock flasher unit; just unplug the old one and plug the new one in.

 

The issue with LEDs and flashers is that most old electro-mechanical flasher units are designed in a way that ties the flash rate to the current flowing through the flasher.  This is actually a useful feature, because it means that when you lose a turn signal bulb and the current flow is reduced you (hopefully) notice that the flasher is going faster than it "should".

 

This worked reliably because everyone and their dog used the P21W or similar bulb for turn signals, so the current for one side of the car is about 3.5A, give-or-take (obviously some variation exists, so you get the odd vehicle-specific flasher).

 

Where you get into trouble with LEDs is that LEDs are much more efficient, so you can get comparable light output with much less current flow. To the old-style flasher the circuit looks like it has a blown bulb (less current flow), so it blinks faster even though the LEDs are working properly.

 

For us, there are two solutions:

 

1) Use a flasher that does not vary its flash speed with current flow, like the one I linked above. You can sometimes modify the flasher internally (I did this for the E36 flasher, for example) if the replacements aren't cheap, but the EP26 LED-aware flashers are very cheap so it's not worth it.  (EDIT: see edits above regarding the flasher pinout changes when using the EP26 flasher.)

 

2) Use a super-high-power LED setup that draws the same current as the stock bulbs. I suggested that in this thread because it sounded like the stock bulb light level was insufficient, and a 27W LED setup is going to be much brigher than a P21W.

 

Hope that helps...

Edited July 18, 2013 by mikesmith

[Slightly Larger Roundies]

Thank you kind sir!